Davis, 54, has harvested wild crawfish in the cypress swamps here since he was 14, long before they began appearing on the menus of trendy restaurants in northern cities.

The 500,000-plus-acre Atchafalaya (locals pronounce it uh-CHAF-fuh-LIE-uh), the largest natural wetland system in the U.S., teems with crawfish-and less obliging species. Davis points out a deadly cottonmouth that lolls on a water lily and remarks on the importance of his 40-horsepower Yamaha outboard.

``No way you could paddle out of here if you had to, buddy,`` the white-haired six-footer says, patting the motor.

He stops at a cypress tree and hoists a wire-mesh trap out of the muddy water, shaking the squirming crawfish onto a picking box, from which the

``mudbugs`` tumble head over tail into a white plastic holding bucket.

When two buckets are full, their contents are emptied into red mesh bags holding about 40 pounds each.

Davis, who quit school after 8th grade, has been doing a lot of public speaking lately-before the legislature in Baton Rouge-fighting a statewide trend among property owners to privatize waterways in the seafood-rich swamp and bayou country.

Fishermen say privatization is the death knell for a way of life practiced there for generations, and will destroy their livelihoods. But property owners, many of them out-of-state corporations recovering from Louisiana`s oil bust, maintain they have the right to harvest the waters and restrict access.

In the Atchafalaya, crawfishermen are being charged $200 a year for access. Some have refused to pay and face criminal charges.

He believes the Atchafalaya dispute eventually will end up in the courts. He and other crawfishermen, organized into a group called Common Claws, are closely watching a case now being considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Five Cajun fishermen from Golden Meadow, 60 miles south, brought suit against a realty company in federal court after they were required to obtain passes to enter the Tidewater Canal near Bayou LaFourche.

``I don`t need a pass to go to the post office or the courthouse here. I don`t see why I need a pass to go trough a navigable waterway,`` plaintiff Joseph Billiot testified before U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Carr.

Judge Carr ruled against the fishermen in 1991 after a trial that included testimony on water-use history dating to 1804.

``The (fishermen) contend that a federal navigational servitude exists in their favor over any areas that are now subject to the ebb and flow of the tides,`` Carr wrote. ``The court disagrees.``

Golden Meadow fisherman Jody Rouse, who traces his ancestry to 18th Century Cajuns, is not involved in that case but faces trespassing charges for crossing waters claimed by the same firm, LaFourche Realty Co. Inc.

``They say this is the land of the free,`` said Rouse, 31, as he prepared for a three-day shrimping excursion. ``I see no freedom when you have to pass in front of armed guards that take down the numbers off your boat.``

According to court papers in the first case, LaFourche Realty obtained permits to erect barrier gates from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Louisiana.

But New Orleans attorney Michael Osborne, who represents the LaFourche fishermen, said in a recent interview that the permits should never have been issued and he has appealed to the 5th Circuit. He said the final decision on the LaFourche case could have wide-ranging consequences.

``Our Constitution gives specific public-trust protection to air and water,`` Osborne said, adding that the case could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Deep in the Atchafalaya on a balmy late spring afternoon, the dry words of the legal briefs seem alien and immaterial. A quarter-acre path of water lilies, dull green earlier in the day, has exploded in a riot of pink and purple flowers.

Charlie Davis` skiff, now heavy with bulging crawfish sacks, skims over the open waters of Bayou Sorrel, startling a flock of white cranes who leap into flight.

``This is not any one person`s property,`` Davis says while pulling the skiff onto a trailer hitched to his blue Dodge pickup.

With a wave of his suntanned arm Davis is gone, headed to market with the day`s catch, as a noontime sun finally breaks through the clouds and mist of the Atchafalaya.